During the night of August 30 the long line of camp-fires on the
heights above
Bull Run, and the
frequent skirmishes along the picket line, told General Lee that his
enemy had no intention of falling back behind the stream. And when
morning broke the Federal troops were observed upon every ridge.

August 30 The Confederate leader, eager as he had been to
force the battle to an issue on the previous afternoon, had now
abandoned all idea of attack. The respite which the enemy had gained
might have altogether changed the situation. It was possible that
the Federals had been largely reinforced.
Pope and
McClellan had been
given time, and the hours of the night might have been utilised to
bring up the remainder of the
Army of the Potomac.
Lee resolved, therefore, to await events. The Federal position was
strong; their masses were well concentrated; there was ample space,
on the ridges beyond Young’s Branch, for the deployment of their
numerous artillery, and it would be difficult to outflank them.
Moreover, a contingent of fresh troops from Richmond, the divisions
of D. H. Hill, McLaws, and Walker, together with Hampton’s brigade
of cavalry, and part of the reserve artillery, 20,350 men in all,
had crossed the Rappahannock.1 Until this force should
join him he determined

to postpone further manœuvres, and to rest his army. But he was not
without hope that Pope might assume the initiative and move down
from the heights on which his columns were already forming. Aware of
the sanguine and impatient temper of his adversary, confident in the
moral of his troops, and in the strength of his position, he
foresaw that an opportunity might offer for an overwhelming
counterstroke.

Meanwhile, the
Confederate divisions, still hidden in the woods, lay quietly on
their arms. Few changes were made in the dispositions of the
previous day. Jackson, despite his losses, had made no demand for
reinforcements; and the only direct support afforded him was a
battery of eighteen guns, drawn from the battalion of Colonel S. D.
Lee, and established on the high ground west of the Douglass House,
at right angles to his line of battle. These guns, pointing
north-east, overlooked the wide tract of undulating meadow which lay
in front of the Stonewall and Lawton’s divisions, and they commanded
a field of fire over a mile long. The left of the battery was not
far distant from the guns on Jackson’s right, and the whole of the
open space was thus exposed to the cross-fire of a formidable
artillery.

To the right of the batteries, Stuart’s Hill was strongly occupied
by Longstreet, with Anderson’s division as general reserve; and this
wing of the Confederate army was gradually wheeled up, but always
under cover, until it was almost perpendicular to the line of the
unfinished railroad. The strength of Lee’s army at the battle of
Manassas was hardly more than 50,000 of all arms. Jackson’s command
had been reduced by battle and forced marches to 17,000 men.
Longstreet mustered 30,000, and the cavalry 2,500.

But numbers are of less importance than the confidence of the men in
their ability to conquer,1 and the spirit of the
Confederates had been raised to the highest pitch. The keen

1 Hood’s Texans had a hymn which graphically expressed this
truism:—

“The race is not to him that’s got The longest legs to
run, Nor the battle to those people That shoot the
biggest gun.”

critics in Longstreet’s ranks, although they had taken no part in
the Manassas raid, or in the battles of August 28 and 29, fully
appreciated the daring strategy which had brought them within two
short marches of
Washington. The
junction of the two wings, in the very presence of the enemy, after
many days of separation, was a manœuvre after their own hearts. The
passage of Thoroughfare Gap revealed the difficulties which had
attended the operations, and the manner in which the enemy had been
outwitted appealed with peculiar force to their quick intelligence.
Their trust in Lee was higher than ever; and the story of Jackson’s
march, of the capture of Manassas, of the repulse of Pope’s army, if
it increased their contempt for the enemy, inspired them with an
enthusiastic determination to emulate the achievements of their
comrades. The soldiers of the Valley army, who, unaided by a single
bayonet, had withstood the five successive assaults which had been
launched against their position, were supremely indifferent, now
Longstreet was in line, to whatever the enemy might attempt. It was
noticed that notwithstanding the heavy losses they had experienced
Jackson’s troops were never more light-hearted than on the morning
of August 30. Cartridge-boxes had been replenished, rations had been
issued, and for several hours the men had been called on neither to
march nor fight. As they lay in the woods, and the pickets, firing
on the enemy’s patrols, kept up a constant skirmish to the front,
the laugh and jest ran down the ranks, and the unfortunate
Pope, who had only seen
“the backs of his enemies,” served as whetstone for their wit.

By the troops who had revelled in the spoils of Winchester Banks had
been dubbed “Old Jack’s Commissary General.” By universal
acclamation, after the Manassas foray, Pope was promoted to the same
distinction; and had it been possible to penetrate to the Federal
headquarters, the mirth of those ragged privates would hardly have
diminished. Pope was in an excellent humour, conversing affably with
his staff, and viewing with pride the martial aspect of his massed
divisions. Nearly his whole force

was concentrated on the hills around him, and Porter, who had been
called up from the Manassas road, was already marching northwards
through the woods.

10.15 p.m. Banks still was absent at Bristoe Station, in
charge of the trains and stores which had been removed from
Warrenton; but, shortly after ten o’clock, 65,000 men, with
eight-and-twenty batteries, were at Pope’s disposal. He had
determined to give battle, although Franklin and Sumner, who had
already reached Alexandria, had not yet joined him; and he
anticipated an easy triumph. He was labouring, however, under an
extraordinary delusion. The retreat of Hood’s brigades the preceding
night, after their reconnaissance, had induced him to believe that
Jackson had been defeated, and he had reported to
Halleck at daybreak; “We fought a
terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of the
enemy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until dark,
by which time the enemy was driven from the field, which we now
occupy. The enemy is still in our front, but badly used up. We lost
not less than 8,000 men killed and wounded, but from the appearance
of the field the enemy lost at least two to one. The news has just
reached me from the front that the enemy is retreating towards the
mountains.”

If, in these days of
long-range weapons, Napoleon’s dictum still stands good, that the
general who is ignorant of his enemy’s strength and dispositions is
ignorant of his trade, then of all generals Pope was surely the most
incompetent. At ten o’clock on the morning of August 30, and for
many months afterwards, despite his statement that he had fought
“the combined forces of the enemy” on the previous day, he was still
under the impression, so skilfully were the Confederate troops
concealed, that Longstreet had not yet joined Jackson, and that the
latter was gradually falling back on Thoroughfare Gap. His patrols
had reported that the enemy’s cavalry had been withdrawn from the
left bank of Bull Run. A small reconnaissance in force, sent to test
Jackson’s strength, had ascertained that the extreme left was not so
far forward as it had been yesterday; while two of the Federal
generals, reconnoitring beyond the turn-

pike, observed only a few skirmishers. On these negative reports
Pope based his decision to seize the ridge which was held by
Jackson. Yet the woods along the unfinished railroad had not been
examined, and the information from other sources was of a different
colour and more positive. Buford’s cavalry had reported on the
evening of the 29th that a large force had passed through
Thoroughfare Gap. Porter declared that the enemy was in great
strength on the Manassas road. Reynolds, who had been in close
contact with Longstreet since the previous afternoon, reported that
Stuart’s Hill was strongly occupied. Ricketts, moreover, who had
fought Longstreet for many hours at Thoroughfare Gap, was actually
present on the field. But Pope, who had made up his mind that the
enemy ought to retreat, and that therefore he must retreat, refused
credence to any report whatever which ran counter to these
preconceived ideas.

12 noon Without making the slightest attempt to verify, by
personal observation, the conclusions at which his subordinates had
arrived, at midday, to the dismay of his best officers, his army
being now in position, he issued orders for his troops to be
“immediately thrown forward in pursuit of the enemy, and to press
him vigorously.”

Porter and
Reynolds formed the left of the Federal army. These generals, alive
to the necessity of examining the woods, deployed a strong skirmish
line before them as they formed for action. Further evidence of
Pope’s hallucination was at once forthcoming. The moment Reynolds
moved forward against Stuart’s Hill he found his front overlapped by
long lines of infantry, and, riding back, he informed Pope that in
so doing he had had to run the gauntlet of skirmishers who
threatened his rear. Porter, too, pushing his reconnaissance across
the meadows west of Groveton, drew the fire of several batteries.
But at this juncture, unfortunately for the Federals, a Union
prisoner, recaptured from Jackson, declared that he had “heard the
rebel officers say that their army was retiring to unite with
Longstreet.” So positively did the indications before him contradict
this statement, that Porter, on sending the man

to Pope, wrote: “In duty bound I send him, but I regard him as
either a fool or designedly released to give a wrong impression. No
faith should be put in what he says.” If Jackson employed this man
to delude his enemy, the ruse was eminently successful. Porter
received the reply: “General Pope believes that soldier, and directs
you to attack;” Reynolds was dismissed with a message that cavalry
would be sent to verify his report; and
McDowell was ordered to put in the divisions of Hatch and
Ricketts on Porter’s right.

During
the whole morning the attention of the Confederates had been
directed to the Groveton wood. Beyond the timber rose the hill
north-east, and on this hill three or four Federal batteries had
come into action at an early hour, firing at intervals across the
meadows. The Confederate guns, save when the enemy’s skirmishers
approached too close, hardly deigned to reply, reserving their
ammunition for warmer work. That such work was to come was hardly
doubtful. Troops had been constantly in motion near the hostile
batteries, and the thickets below were evidently full of men.

12.15 p.m. Shortly after noon the enemy’s skirmishers
became aggressive, swarming over the meadows, and into the wood
which had seen such heavy slaughter in the fight of yesterday. As
Jackson’s pickets, extended over a wide front, gave slowly back, his
guns opened in earnest, and shell and shrapnel flew fast over the
open space. The strong force of skirmishers betrayed the presence of
a line of battle not far in rear, and ignoring the fire of the
artillery, the Confederate batteries concentrated on the covert
behind which they knew the enemy’s masses were forming for attack.
But, except the pickets, not a single man of either the Stonewall or
Lawton’s division was permitted to expose himself. A few companies
held the railroad, the remainder were carefully concealed. The storm
was not long in breaking. Jackson had just ridden along his lines,
examining with his own eyes the stir in the Groveton wood, when, in
rear of the skirmishers, advancing over the highroad, appeared the
serried ranks of the line

of battle. 20,000 bayonets, on a front which extended from Groveton
to near Bull Run, swept forward against his front; 40,000, formed in
dense masses on the slopes in rear, stood in readiness to support
them; and numerous batteries, coming into action on every rising
ground, covered the advance with a heavy fire.

Pope, standing on a knoll near the Stone House, saw victory within
his grasp. The Confederate guns had been pointed out to his troops
as the objective of the attack. Unsupported, as he believed, save by
the scattered groups of skirmishers who were already retreating to
the railroad, and assailed in front and flank, these batteries, he
expected, would soon be flying to the rear, and the Federal army, in
possession of the high ground, would then sweep down in heavy
columns towards Thoroughfare Gap. Suddenly his hopes fell. Porter’s
masses, stretching far to right and left, had already passed the
Dogan House; Hatch was entering the Groveton wood; Ricketts was
moving forward along Bull Run, and the way seemed clear before them;
when loud and clear above the roar of the artillery rang out the
Confederate bugles, and along the whole length of the ridge beyond
the railroad long lines of infantry, streaming forward from the
woods, ran down to the embankment. “The effect,” said an officer who
witnessed this unexpected apparition, “was not unlike flushing a
covey of quails.”

Instead of the
small rear-guard which Pope had thought to crush by sheer force of
overwhelming numbers, the whole of the Stonewall division, with
Lawton on the left, stood across Porter’s path.

Reynolds, south of the turnpike, and confronting Longstreet, was
immediately ordered to fall back and support the attack, and two
small brigades, Warren’s and Alexander’s, were left alone on the
Federal left. Pope had committed his last and his worst blunder.
Sigel with two divisions was
in rear of Porter, and for Sigel’s assistance Porter had already
asked. But Pope, still under the delusion that Longstreet was not
yet up, preferred rather to weaken his left than
grant the request of a subordinate.

Under such a leader the courage of the troops, however vehement, was
of no avail, and in Porter’s attack the soldiers displayed a courage
to which the Confederates paid a willing tribute. Morell’s division,
with the two brigades abreast, arrayed in three lines, advanced
across the meadows. Hatch’s division, in still deeper formation,
pushed through the wood on Morell’s right. Nearer Bull Run were two
brigades of Ricketts; and to Morell’s left rear the division of
regulars moved forward under Sykes.

Morell’s attack was directed against Jackson’s right. In the centre
of the Federal line a mounted officer, whose gallant bearing lived
long in the memories of the Stonewall division, rode out in front of
the column, and, drawing his sabre, led the advance over the rolling
grass-land. The Confederate batteries, with a terrible cross-fire,
swept the Northern ranks from end to end. The volley of the
infantry, lying behind their parapet, struck them full in face. But
the horse and his rider lived through it all. The men followed
close, charging swiftly up the slope, and then the leader, putting
his horse straight at the embankment, stood for a moment on the top.
The daring feat was seen by the whole Confederate line, and a yell
went up from the men along the railroad, “Don’t kill him! don’t kill
him!” But while the cry went up horse and rider fell in one limp
mass across the earthwork, and the gallant Northerner was dragged
under shelter by his generous foes.

With such men as this to show the way what soldiers would be
backward? As the Russians followed Skobeleff’s grey up the bloody
slopes of Plevna, so the Federals followed the bright chestnut of
this unknown hero, and not till the colours waved within thirty
paces of the parapet did the charge falter. But, despite the
supports that came thronging up, Jackson’s soldiers, covered by the
earthwork, opposed a resistance which no mere frontal attack could
break. Three times, as the lines in rear merged with the first, the
Federal officers brought their men forward to the assault, and three
times were they hurled back, leaving hundreds of their number dead
and wounded on the blood-

soaked turf. One regiment of the Stonewall division, posted in a
copse beyond the railroad, was driven in; but others, when
cartridges failed them, had recourse, like the Guards at Inkermann,
to the stones which lay along the railway-bed; and with these
strange weapons, backed up by the bayonet, more than one desperate
effort was repulsed. In arresting Garnett after Kernstown, because
when his ammunition was exhausted he had abandoned his position,
Jackson had lost a good general, but he had taught his soldiers a
useful lesson. So long as the cold steel was left to them, and their
flanks were safe, they knew that their indomitable leader expected
them to hold their ground, and right gallantly they responded. For
over thirty minutes the battle raged along the front at the closest
range. Opposite a deep cutting the colours of a Federal regiment,
for nearly half an hour, rose and fell, as bearer after bearer was
shot down, within ten yards of the muzzles of the Confederate
rifles, and after the fight a hundred dead Northerners were found
where the flag had been so gallantly upheld.

Hill, meanwhile, was heavily engaged with Hatch. Every brigade, with
the exception of Gregg’s, had been thrown into the fighting-line;
and so hardly were they pressed, that Jackson, turning to his
signallers, demanded reinforcements from his colleague. Longstreet,
in response to the call, ordered two more batteries to join Colonel
Stephen Lee; and Morell’s division, penned in that deadly cockpit
between Stuart’s Hill and the Groveton wood, shattered by musketry
in front and by artillery at short range in flank, fell back across
the meadows. Hatch soon followed suit, and Jackson’s artillery,
which during the fight at close quarters had turned its fire on the
supports, launched a storm of shell on the defeated Federals. Some
batteries were ordered to change position so as to rake their lines;
and the Stonewall Division, reinforced by a brigade of Hill’s, was
sent forward to the counter-attack. At every step the losses of the
Federals increased, and the shattered divisions, passing through two
regiments of regulars, which had been sent forward to support them,
sought shelter in the woods. Then Porter and Hatch, under cover of
their artillery, withdrew their

infantry. Ricketts had fallen back before his troops arrived within
decisive range. Under the impression that he was about to pursue a
retreating enemy, he had found on advancing, instead of a thin
screen of skirmishers, a line of battle, strongly established, and
backed by batteries to which he was unable to reply. Against such
odds attack would only have increased the slaughter.

It was after four o’clock. Three hours of daylight yet remained,
time enough still to secure a victory. But the Federal army was in
no condition to renew the attack. Worn with long marches, deprived
of their supplies, and oppressed by the consciousness that they were
ill-led, both officers and men had lost all confidence. Every single
division on the field had been engaged, and every single division
had been beaten back. For four days, according to General Pope, they
had been following a flying foe. “We were sent forward,” reported a
regimental commander with quiet sarcasm, “to pursue the enemy, who
was said to be retreating; we found the enemy, but did not see them
retreat.”

Nor, had there been a
larger reserve in hand, would a further advance have been permitted.
The Stonewall division, although Porter’s regiments were breaking up
before its onset, had been ordered to fall back before it became
exposed to the full sweep of the Federal guns. But the woods to the
south, where Longstreet’s divisions had been lying for so many
hours, were already alive with bayonets. The grey skirmishers,
extending far beyond Pope’s left, were moving rapidly down the
slopes of Stuart’s Hill, and the fire of the artillery, massed on
the ridge in rear, was increasing every moment in intensity. The
Federals, just now advancing in pursuit, were suddenly thrown on the
defensive; and the hand of a great captain snatched control of the
battle from the grasp of Pope.

As
Porter reeled back from Jackson’s front, Lee had seen his
opportunity. The whole army was ordered to advance to the attack.
Longstreet, prepared since dawn for the counterstroke, had moved
before the message

reached him, and the exulting yells of his soldiers were now
resounding through the forest. Jackson was desired to cover
Longstreet’s left; and sending Starke and Lawton across the meadows,
strewn with the bloody débris of Porter’s onslaught, he
instructed Hill to advance en échelon with his left
“refused.” Anticipating the order, the commander of the Light
Division was already sweeping through the Groveton wood.

The Federal gunners, striving valiantly to cover the retreat of
their shattered infantry, met the advance of the Southerners with a
rapid fire. Pope and McDowell exerted themselves to throw a strong
force on to the heights above Bull Run; and the two brigades upon
the left, Warren’s and Alexander’s, already overlapped, made a
gallant effort to gain time for the occupation of the new position.

But the counterstroke of Lee was not to be withstood by a few
regiments of infantry. The field of Bull Run had seen many examples
of the attack as executed by indifferent tacticians. At the first
battle isolated brigades had advanced at wide intervals of time. At
the second battle the Federals had assaulted by successive
divisions. Out of 50,000 infantry, no more than 20,000 had been
simultaneously engaged, and when a partial success had been achieved
there were no supports at hand to complete the victory. When the
Confederates came forward it was in other fashion; and those who had
the wit to understand were now to learn the difference between
mediocrity and genius, between the half-measures of the one and the
resolution of the other. Lee’s order for the advance embraced his
whole army. Every regiment, every battery, and every squadron was
employed. No reserves save the artillery were retained upon the
ridge, but wave after wave of bayonets followed closely on the
fighting-line. To drive the attack forward by a quick succession of
reinforcements, to push it home by weight of numbers, to pile blow
on blow, to keep the defender occupied along his whole front, and to
provide for retreat, should retreat be necessary, not by throwing in
fresh troops, but by leaving the enemy so crippled that he would be
powerless

The field was still covered with Porter’s and Hatch’s disordered
masses when Lee’s strong array advanced, and the sight was
magnificent. As far as the eye could reach the long grey lines of
infantry, with the crimson of the colours gleaming like blood in the
evening sun, swept with ordered ranks across the Groveton valley.
Batteries galloped furiously to the front; far away to the right
fluttered the guidons of Stuart’s squadrons, and over all the massed
artillery maintained a tremendous fire. The men drew fresh vigour
from this powerful combination. The enthusiasm of the troops was as
intense as their excitement. With great difficulty, it is related,
were the gunners restrained from joining in the charge, and the
officers of the staff could scarcely resist the impulse to throw
themselves with their victorious comrades upon the retreating foe.

The advance was made in the following order:

Wilcox’ division, north of the turnpike, connected with Jackson’s
right. Then came Evans, facing the two brigades which formed the
Federal left, and extending across the turnpike. Behind Evans came
Anderson on the left and Kemper on the right. Then, in prolongation
of Kemper’s line, but at some interval, marched the division of D.
R. Jones, flanked by Stuart’s cavalry, and on the further wing,
extending towards Bull Run, were Starke, Lawton, and A. P. Hill.
50,000 men, including the cavalry, were thus deployed over a front
of four miles; each division was formed in at least two lines; and
in the centre, where Anderson and Kemper supported Evans, were no
less than eight brigades one in rear of the other.

The Federal advanced line, behind which the troops which had been
engaged in the last attack were slowly rallying, extended from the
Groveton wood to a low hill, south of the turnpike and east of the
village. This hill was quickly carried by Hood’s brigade of Evans’s
division. The two regiments which defended it, rapidly outflanked,
and assailed by overwhelming numbers, were routed with the loss of
nearly half their muster. Jackson’s attack

through the Groveton wood was equally successful, but on the ridge
in rear were posted the regulars under Sykes; and, further east, on
Buck Hill, had assembled the remnants of four divisions.

Outflanked by the capture of the hill upon their left, and fiercely
assailed in front, Sykes’s well-disciplined regiments, formed in
lines of columns and covered by a rear-guard of skirmishers, retired
steadily under the tremendous fire, preserving their formation, and
falling back slowly across Young’s Branch. Then Jackson, reforming
his troops along the Sudley road, and swinging round to the left,
moved swiftly against Buck Hill. Here, in addition to the infantry,
were posted three Union batteries, and the artillery made a
desperate endeavour to stay the counterstroke.

But nothing could withstand the vehement charge of the Valley
soldiers. “They came on,” says the correspondent of a Northern
journal, “like demons emerging from the earth.” The crests of the
ridges blazed with musketry, and Hill’s infantry, advancing in the
very teeth of the canister, captured six guns at the bayonet’s
point. Once more Jackson reformed his lines; and, as twilight came
down upon the battle-field, from position after position, in the
direction of the Stone Bridge, the division of Stevens, Ricketts,
Kearney, and
Hooker, were gradually
pushed back.

On the Henry Hill,
the key of the Federal position, a fierce conflict was meanwhile
raging. From the high ground to the south Longstreet had driven back
several brigades which, in support of the artillery, Sigel and
McDowell had massed upon Bald Hill. But this position had not been
occupied without a protracted struggle. Longstreet’s first line,
advancing with over-impetuosity, had outstripped the second; and
before it could be supported was compelled to give ground under the
enemy’s fire, one of the brigades losing 62 officers and 560 men.
Anderson and Kemper were then brought up; the flank of the defenders
was turned; a counterstroke was beaten back, ridge after ridge was
mastered, the edge of every wood was stormed; and as the sun set

behind the mountains Bald Hill was carried. During this fierce
action the division of D. R. Jones, leaving the Chinn House to the
left, had advanced against the Henry Hill.

6 p.m. On the very ground which Jackson had held in his
first battle the best troops of the Federal army were rapidly
assembling. Here were Sykes’ regulars and Reynolds’ Pennsylvanians;
where the woods permitted batteries had been established; and
Porter’s Fifth Army Corps, who at Gaines’ Mill and Malvern Hill had
proved such stubborn fighters, opposed a strong front once more to
their persistent foes.

Despite the
rapid fire of the artillery the Southerners swept forward with
unabated vigour. But as the attack was pressed the resistance of the
Federals grew more stubborn, and before long the Confederate
formation lost its strength. The lines in rear had been called up.
The assistance of the strong centre had been required to rout the
defenders of Bald Hill; and although Anderson and Wilcox pressed
forward on his left, Jones had not sufficient strength to storm the
enemy’s last position. Moreover, the Confederate artillery had been
unable to follow the infantry over the broken ground; the cavalry,
confronted by Buford’s squadrons and embarrassed by the woods, could
lend no active aid, and the Federals, defeated as they were, had not
yet lost all heart. Whatever their guns could do, in so close a
country, to relieve the infantry had been accomplished; and the
infantry, though continually outflanked, held together with
unflinching courage. Stragglers there were, and stragglers in such
large numbers that Bayard’s cavalry brigade had been ordered to the
rear to drive them back; but the majority of the men, hardened by
months of discipline and constant battle, remained staunch to the
colours. The conviction that the battle was lost was no longer a
signal for “the thinking bayonets” to make certain of their
individual safety; and the regulars, for the second time on the same
field, provided a strong nucleus of resistance.

Thrown into the woods along the Sudley–Manassas road, five
battalions of the United States army held the extreme left, the most
critical point of the Federal line, until

the second brigade relieved them. To their right
Meade and his
Pennsylvanians held fast against Anderson and Wilcox; and although
six guns fell into the hands of the Confederate infantry, and four
of Longstreet’s batteries, which had accompanied the cavalry, were
now raking their left, Pope’s soldiers, as twilight descended upon
the field, redeemed as far as soldiers could the errors of their
general. Stuart, on the right flank of the Confederate line, charged
down the opposing cavalry1 and crossed Bull Run at Lewis’
Ford; but the dark masses on the Henry Hill, increased every moment
by troops ascending from the valley, still held fast, with no hope
indeed of victory, but with a stern determination to maintain their
ground. Had the hill been lost, nothing could have saved Pope’s
army. The crest commanded the crossings of Bull Run. The Stone
Bridge, the main point of passage, was not more than a mile
northward, within the range of artillery, and Jackson was already in
possession of the Matthew Hill, not fourteen hundred yards from the
road by which the troops must pass in their retreat.

7.30 p.m. The night, however, put an end to the battle.
Even the Valley soldiers were constrained to halt. It was impossible
in the obscurity to distinguish friend from foe. The Confederate
lines presented a broken front, here pushed forward, and here drawn
back; divisions, brigades, and regiments had intermingled; and the
thick woods, intervening at frequent intervals, rendered combination
impracticable. During the darkness, which was accompanied by heavy
rain, the Federals quietly withdrew, leaving thousands of

1 This was one of the most brilliant cavalry fights of the
war. Colonel Munford, of the 2nd Virginia, finding the enemy
advancing, formed line and charged, the impetuosity of the attack
carrying his regiment through the enemy’s first line, with whom his
men were thoroughly intermingled in hand-to-hand conflict. The
Federals, however, who had advanced at a trot, in four successive
lines, were far superior in numbers; but the 7th and 12th Virginia
rapidly came up, and the charge of the 12th, constituting as it were
a last reserve, drove the enemy from the field. The Confederates
lost 5 killed and 40 wounded. Munford himself, and the commander of
the First Michigan (Union) cavalry were both wounded by sabre-cuts,
the latter mortally. 300 Federals were taken prisoners, 19 killed,
and 80 wounded. Sabre, carbine, and revolver were freely used.

wounded on the field, and morning found them in position on the
heights of
Centreville, four
miles beyond Bull Run.

Pope, with
an audacity which disaster was powerless to tame, reported to
Halleck that, on the whole, the
results of the battle were favourable to the Federal army. “The
enemy,” he wrote, “largely reinforced, assailed our position early
to-day. We held our ground firmly until 6 o’clock p.m., when the
enemy, massing very heavy forces on our left, forced that wing back
about half a mile. At dark we held that position. Under all the
circumstances, with horses and men having been two days without
food, and the enemy greatly outnumbering us, I thought it best to
move back to this place at dark. The movement has been made in
perfect order and without loss. The battle was most furious for
hours without cessation, and the losses on both sides very heavy.
The enemy is badly whipped, and we shall do well enough. Do not be
uneasy. We will hold our own here.”

Pope’s actions, however, were invariably at variance with Pope’s
words. At 6 p.m. he had ordered Franklin, who was approaching Bull
Run from Alexandria with 10,000 fresh troops, to occupy with his own
command and whatever other troops he could collect, the
fortifications round Centreville, and hold them “to the last
extremity.”
Banks, still at
Bristoe Station, was told to destroy all the supplies of which he
was in charge, as well as the railway, and to march on Centreville;
while 30 guns and more than 2,000 wounded were left upon the field.
Nor were Pope’s anticipations as to the future to be fulfilled. The
position at Centrevile was strong. The intrenchments constructed by
the Confederates during the winter of
1861 were still standing.
Halleck had forwarded supplies;
there was ammunition in abundance, and 20,000 infantry under
Franklin and Sumner—for the latter also had come up from
Washington—more than compensated for the casualties of the battle.
But formidable earthworks, against generals who dare manœuvre, are
often a mere trap for the unwary.

and, picking up many stragglers as they marched, came within range
of the guns at Centreville. Lee, accompanied by Jackson, having
reconnoitred the position, determined to move once more upon the
Federal rear. Longstreet remained on the battle-field to engage the
attention of the enemy and cover the removal of the wounded; while
Jackson, crossing not by the Stone Bridge, but by Sudley Ford, was
entrusted with the work of forcing Pope from his strong position.

The weather was inclement, the roads were quagmires, and the men
were in no condition to make forced marches. Yet before nightfall
Jackson had pushed ten miles through the mud, halting near Pleasant
Valley, on the Little River turnpike, five miles north-west of
Centreville. During the afternoon Longstreet, throwing a brigade
across Bull Run to keep the enemy on the qui vive, followed
the same route. Of these movements Pope received no warning, and
Jackson’s proclivity for flank manœuvres had evidently made no
impression on him, for, in blissful unconsciousness that his line of
retreat was already threatened, he ordered all waggons to be
unloaded at Centreville, and to return to Fairfax Station for forage
and rations.

Sept. 1 But on the morning of September 1, although his
whole army, including Banks, was closely concentrated behind strong
intrenchments, Pope had conceived a suspicion that he would find it
difficult to fulfil his promise to
Halleck that “he would hold
on.” The previous night Stuart had been active towards his right and
rear, capturing his reconnoitring parties, and shelling his trains.
Before noon suspicion became certainty. Either stragglers or the
country people reported that Jackson was moving down the Little
River turnpike, and Centreville was at once evacuated, the troops
marching to a new position round Fairfax Court House.

Jackson, meanwhile, covered by the cavalry, was advancing to
Chantilly—a fine old mansion which the Federals had gutted—with the
intention of seizing a position whence he could command the road.
The day was sombre, and a tempest was gathering in the mountains.
Late in the

afternoon, Stuart’s patrols near Ox Hill were driven in by hostile
infantry, the thick woods preventing the scouts from ascertaining
the strength or dispositions of the Federal force. Jackson at once
ordered two brigades of Hill’s to feel the enemy. The remainder of
the Light Division took ground to the right, followed by Lawton;
Starke’s division held the turnpike, and Stuart was sent towards
Fairfax Court House to ascertain whether the Federal main body was
retreating or advancing.

Reno, who
had been ordered to protect Pope’s flank, came briskly forward, and
Hill’s advanced guard was soon brought to a standstill. Three fresh
brigades were rapidly deployed; as the enemy pressed the attack a
fourth was sent in, and the Northerners fell back with the loss of a
general and many men. Lawton’s first line became engaged at the same
time, and Reno, now reinforced by Kearney, made a vigorous effort to
hold the Confederates in check. Hays’ brigade of Lawton’s division,
commanded by an inexperienced officer, was caught while “clubbed”
during a change of formation, and driven back in disorder; and
Trimble’s brigade, now reduced to a handful, became involved in the
confusion. But a vigorous charge of the second line restored the
battle. The Federals were beginning to give way. General Kearney,
riding through the murky twilight into the Confederate lines, was
shot by a skirmisher. The hostile lines were within short range, and
the advent of a reserve on either side would have probably ended the
engagement. But the rain was now falling in torrents; heavy peals of
thunder, crashing through the forest, drowned the discharges of the
two guns which Jackson had brought up through the woods, and the red
flash of musketry paled before the vivid lightning. Much of the
ammunition was rendered useless, the men were unable to discharge
their pieces, and the fierce wind lashed the rain in the faces of
the Confederates. The night grew darker and the tempest fiercer; and
as if by mutual consent the opposing lines drew gradually apart.1

1 It was at this time, probably, that Jackson received a
message from a brigade commander, reporting that his cartridges were
so wet that he feared he could not maintain his position. “Tell
him,” was the quick reply, “to hold his ground; if his guns will not
go off, neither will the enemy’s.”

On the side of the Confederates only half the force had been
engaged. Starke’s division never came into action, and of Hill’s and
Lawton’s there were still brigades in reserve. 500 men were killed
or wounded; but although the three Federal divisions are reported to
have lost 1,000, they had held their ground, and Jackson was
thwarted in his design. Pope’s trains and his whole army reached
Fairfax Court House without further disaster. But the persistent
attacks of his indefatigable foe had broken down his resolution. He
had intended, he told
Halleck, when Jackson’s
march down the Little River turnpike was first announced, to attack
the Confederates the next day, or “certainly the day after.”

Sept. 2 The action at Chantilly, however, induced a more
prudent mood; and, on the morning of the 2nd, he reported that
“there was an intense idea among the troops that they must get
behind the intrenchments [of Alexandria]; that there was an
undoubted purpose, on the part of the enemy, to keep on slowly
turning his position so as to come in on the right, and that the
forces under his command were unable to prevent him doing so in the
open field.
Halleck must decide what was
to be done.” The reply was prompt, Pope was to bring his forces, “as
best he could,” under the shelter of the heavy guns.

Whatever might be the truth as regards the troops, there could be no
question but that the general was demoralised; and, preceded by
thousands of stragglers, the army fell back without further delay to
the Potomac. It was not followed except by Stuart. “It was found,”
says Lee, in his official dispatch, ”that the enemy had conducted
his retreat so rapidly that the attempt to interfere with him was
abandoned. The proximity of the fortifications around Alexandria and
Washington rendered further pursuit useless.”

On the same day
General McClellan
was entrusted with the defence of Washington, and Pope, permitted to
resign, was soon afterwards relegated to an obscure

command against the Indians of the North-west. His errors had been
flagrant. He can hardly be charged with want of energy, but his
energy was spasmodic; on the field of battle he was strangely
indolent, and yet he distrusted the reports of others. But more
fatal than his neglect of personal reconnaissance was his power of
self-deception. He was absolutely incapable of putting himself in
his enemy’s place, and time after time he acted on the supposition
that Lee and Jackson would do exactly what he most wished them to
do. When his supplies were destroyed, he concentrated at Manassas
Junction, convinced that Jackson would remain to be overwhelmed.
When he found Jackson near Sudley Springs, and Thoroughfare Gap
open, he rushed forward to attack him, convinced that Longstreet
could not be up for eight-and-forty hours. When he sought shelter at
Centreville, he told Halleck not to be uneasy, convinced that Lee
would knock his head against his fortified position. Before the
engagement at Chantilly he had made up his mind to attack the enemy
the next morning. A few hours later he reported that his troops were
utterly untrustworthy, although 20,000 of them, under Franklin and
Sumner, had not yet seen the enemy. In other respects his want of
prudence had thwarted his best endeavours. His cavalry at the
beginning of the campaign was effectively employed. But so
extravagant were his demands on the mounted arm, that before the
battle of Manassas half his regiments were dismounted. It is true
that the troopers were still indifferent horsemen and bad
horse-masters, but it was the fault of the commander that the
unfortunate animals had no rest, that brigades were sent to do the
work of patrols, and that little heed was paid to the physical wants
of man and beast. As a tactician Pope was incapable. As a strategist
he lacked imagination, except in his dispatches. His horizon was
limited, and he measured the capacity of his adversaries by his own.
He was familiar with the campaign in the Valley, with the operations
in the Peninsula, and Cedar Run should have enlightened him as to
Jackson’s daring. But he had no conception that his adversaries
would cheerfully accept

great risks to achieve great ends; he had never dreamt of a general
who would deliberately divide his army, or of one who would make
fifty-six miles in two marches.

Lee, with his extraordinary insight into character, had played on
Pope as he had played on
McClellan, and his
strategy was justified by success. In the space of three weeks he
had carried the war from the James to the Potomac. With an army that
at no time exceeded 55,000 men he had driven 80,000 into the
fortifications of Washington.1 He had captured 30 guns,
7,000 prisoners, 20,000 rifles, and many stand of colours; he had
killed or wounded 13,500 Federals, destroyed supplies and material
of enormous value; and all this with a loss to the Confederates of
10,000 officers and men.

So much
had he done for the South; for his own reputation he had done more.
If, as Moltke avers, the junction of two armies on the field of
battle is the highest achievement of military genius,2
the campaign against Pope has seldom been surpassed; and the great
counterstroke at Manassas is sufficient in itself to make Lee’s
reputation as a tactician. Salamanca was perhaps a more brilliant
example of the same manœuvre, for at Salamanca Wellington had no
reason to anticipate that Marmont would blunder, and the mighty
stroke which beat 40,000 French in forty minutes was conceived in a
few moments. Nor does Manassas equal Austerlitz. No such subtle
manœuvres were employed as those by which Napoleon induced the
Allies to lay bare their centre, and drew them blindly to their
doom. It was not due to the skill of Lee that Pope weakened his left
at the crisis of the battle.3

1 Sumner and Franklin had become involved in Pope’s retreat.
2 Tried by this test alone Lee stands out as one of the
greatest soldiers of all times. Not only against Pope, but against
McClellan at Gaines’ Mill, against
Burnside at
Fredericksburg, and
against Hooker at Chancellorsville, he succeeded in carrying out the
operations of which Moltke speaks; and in each case with the same
result of surprising his adversary. None knew better how to apply
that great principle of strategy, “to march divided but to fight
concentrated.”3 It may be noticed, however, that the care
with which Longstreet’s troops were kept concealed for more than
four-and-twenty hours had much to do with Pope’s false manœuvres.

But in the rapidity with which the opportunity was seized, in the
combination of the three arms, and in the vigour of the blow,
Manassas is in no way inferior to Austerlitz or Salamanca. That the
result was less decisive was due to the greater difficulties of the
battle-field, to the stubborn resistance of the enemy, to the
obstacles in the way of rapid and connected movement, and to the
inexperience of the troops. Manassas was not, like Austerlitz and
Salamanca, won by veteran soldiers, commanded by trained officers,
perfect in drill and inured to discipline. Lee’s strategic manœuvres
were undoubtedly hazardous. But that an antagonist of different
calibre would have met them with condign punishment is short-sighted
criticism. Against an antagonist of different calibre, against such
generals as he was afterwards to encounter, they would never have
been attempted. “He studied his adversary,” says his Military
Secretary, “knew his peculiarities, and adapted himself to them. His
own methods no one could foresee-he varied them with every change in
the commanders opposed to him. He had one method with McClellan,
another with Pope, another with Hooker, another with Meade, and yet
another with
Grant.” Nor was the
dangerous period of the Manassas campaign so protracted as might be
thought. Jackson marched north from Jefferson on August 25. On the
26th he reached Bristoe Station. Pope, during these two days, might
have thrown himself either on Longstreet or on Jackson. He did
neither, and on the morning of the 27th, when Jackson reached Sudley
Springs, the crisis had passed. Had the Federals blocked
Thoroughfare Gap that day, and prevented Longstreet’s passage, Lee
was still able to concentrate without incurring defeat. Jackson,
retreating by Aldie Gap, would have joined Longstreet west of the
mountains; Pope would have escaped defeat, but the Confederates
would have lost nothing. Moreover, it is well to remember that the
Confederate cavalry was in every single respect, in leading,
horsemanship, training, and knowledge of the country, superior to
the Federal. The whole population, too, was staunchly

Southern. It was always probable, therefore, that information would
be scarce in the Federal camps, and that if some items did get
through the cavalry screen, they would be so late in reaching Pope’s
headquarters as to be practically useless. There can be no question
that Lee, in these operations, relied much on the skill of Stuart.
Stuart was given a free hand. Unlike Pope, Lee issued few orders as
to the disposition of his horsemen. He merely explained the
manœuvres he was about to undertake, pointed out where he wished the
main body of the cavalry should be found, and left all else to their
commander. He had no need to tell Stuart that he required
information of the enemy, or to lay down the method by which it was
to be obtained. That was Stuart’s normal duty, and right well was it
performed. How admirably the young cavalry general co-operated with
Jackson has already been described. The latter suggested, the former
executed, and the combination of the three arms, during the whole of
Jackson’s operations against Pope, was as close as when Ashby led
his squadrons in the Valley.

Yet
it was not on Stuart that fell, next to Lee, the honours of the
campaign. Brilliant as was the handling of the cavalry, impenetrable
the screen it formed, and ample the information it procured, the
breakdown of the Federal horse made the task comparatively simple.
Against adversaries whose chargers were so leg-weary that they could
hardly raise a trot it was easy to be bold. One of Stuart’s
brigadiers would have probably done the work as well as Stuart
himself. But the handling of the Valley army, from the time it left
Jefferson on the 25th until Longstreet reached Gainesville on the
29th, demanded higher qualities than vigilance and activity.
Throughout the operations Jackson’s endurance was the wonder of his
staff. He hardly slept. He was untiring in reconnaissance, in
examination of the country and in observation of the enemy, and no
detail of the march escaped his personal scrutiny. Yet his muscles
were much less hardly used than his brain. The intellectual problem
was more difficult than the physical. To march his

army fifty-six miles in two days was far simpler than to maintain it
on Pope’s flank until Longstreet came into line. The direction of
his marches, the position of his bivouacs, the distribution of his
three divisions, were the outcome of long premeditation. On the
night of the 25th he disappeared into the darkness on the road to
Salem leaving the Federals under the conviction that he was making
for the Valley. On the 26th he moved on Bristoe Station, rather than
on Manassas Junction, foreseeing that he might be interrupted from
the south-west in his destruction of the stores. On the 27th he
postponed his departure till night had fallen, moving in three
columns, of which the column marching on Centreville, whither he
desired that the enemy should follow, was the last to move.
Concentrating at Sudley Springs on the 28th, he placed himself in
the best position to hold Pope fast, to combine with Longstreet, or
to escape by Aldie Gap; and on the 29th the ground he had selected
for battle enabled him to hold out against superior numbers.

Neither strategically nor tactically did he make a single mistake.
His attack on King’s division at Groveton, on the evening of the
28th, was purely frontal, and his troops lost heavily. But he
believed King to be the flank-guard of a larger force, and under
such circumstances turning movements were over-hazardous. The woods,
too, prevented the deployment of his artillery; and the attack, in
its wider aspect, was eminently successful, for the aim was not to
defeat King, but to bring Pope back to a position where Lee could
crush him. On the 29th his dispositions were admirable. The battle
is a fine example of defensive tactics. The position, to use a
familiar illustration, “fitted the troops like a glove.” It was of
such strength that, while the front was adequately manned, ample
reserves remained in rear. The left, the most dangerous flank, was
secured by Bull Run, and massed batteries gave protection to the
right. The distribution of the troops, the orders, and the amount of
latitude accorded to subordinate leaders, followed the best models.
The front was so apportioned that each brigadier on the
fighting-line had his own reserve,

and each divisional general half his force in third line. The orders
indicated that counterstrokes were not to be pushed so far as to
involve the troops in an engagement with the enemy’s reserves, and
the subordinate generals were encouraged, without waiting for
orders, and thus losing the occasion, to seize all favourable
opportunities for counterstroke. The methods employed by Jackson
were singularly like those of Wellington. A position was selected
which gave cover and concealment to the troops, and against which
the powerful artillery of a more numerous enemy was practically
useless. These were the characteristics of Vimiera, Busaco,
Talavera, and Waterloo. Nor did Jackson’s orders differ from those
of the great Englishman.

The
Duke’s subordinates, when placed in position, acted on a
well-established rule. Within that position they had unlimited
power. They could defend the first line, or they could meet the
enemy with a counter-attack from a position in rear, and in both
cases they could pursue. But the pursuit was never to be carried
beyond certain defined limits. Moreover, Wellington’s views as to
the efficacy of the counterstroke were identical with those of
Jackson, and he had the same predilection for cold steel. “If they
attempt this point again, Hill,” were his orders to that general at
Busaco, “give them a volley and charge bayonets; but don’t let your
people follow them too far.”

But
it was neither wise strategy nor sound tactics which was the main
element in Pope’s defeat; neither the strong effort of a powerful
brain, nor the judicious devolution of responsibility. A brilliant
military historian, more conversant perhaps with the War of
Secession than the wars of France, concludes his review of this
campaign with a reference to Jackson as “the Ney of the Confederate
army.”1 The allusion is obvious. So long as the victories
of Napoleon are remembered, the name of his lieutenant will always
be a synonym for heroic valour. But the valour of Ney was of a
different type from that of Jackson. Ney’s valour was animal,
Jackson’s was moral, and between the two there is a vast
distinction. Before the

enemy, when his danger was tangible, Ney had few rivals. But when
the enemy was unseen and his designs were doubtful, his resolution
vanished. He was without confidence in his own resources. He could
not act without direct orders, and he dreaded responsibility. At
Bautzen his timidity ruined Napoleon’s combinations; in the campaign
of Leipsic he showed himself incapable of independent command; and
he cannot be acquitted of hesitation at Quatre Bras.

It was in the same circumstances that Ney’s courage invariably gave
way that Jackson’s courage shone with the brightest lustre. It might
appear that he had little cause for fear in the campaign of the
Second Manassas, that he had only to follow his instructions, and
that if he had failed his failure would have been visited upon Lee.
The instructions which he received, however, were not positive, but
contingent on events. If possible, he was to cut the railway, in
order to delay the reinforcements which Pope was expecting from
Alexandria; and then, should the enemy permit, he was to hold fast
east of the Bull Run Mountains until Lee came up. But he was to be
guided in everything by his own discretion. He was free to accept
battle or refuse it, to attack or to defend, to select his own line
of retreat, to move to any quarter of the compass that he pleased.
For three days, from the morning of August 26 to the morning of
August 29, he had complete control of the strategic situation; on
his movements were dependent the movements of the main army; the
bringing the enemy to bay and the choice of the field of battle were
both in his hands. And during those three days he was cut off from
Lee and Longstreet. The mountains, with their narrow passes, lay
between; and, surrounded by three times his number, he was abandoned
entirely to his own resources.

Throughout the operations he had been in unusually high spirits. The
peril and responsibility seemed to act as an elixir, and he threw
off much of his constraint. But as the day broke on August 29 he
looked long and earnestly in the direction of Thoroughfare Gap, and

when a messenger from Stuart brought the intelligence that
Longstreet was through the pass, he drew a long breath and uttered a
sigh of relief.1 The period of suspense was over, but
even on that unyielding heart the weight of anxiety had pressed with
fearful force. For three days he had only received news of the main
army at long and uncertain intervals. For two of these days his
information of the enemy’s movements was very small. While he was
marching to Bristoe Station, Pope, for all he knew, might have been
marching against Longstreet with his whole force. When he attacked
King on the 28th the Federals, in what strength he knew not, still
held Thoroughfare Gap; when he formed for action on the 29th he was
still ignorant of what had happened to the main body, and it was on
the bare chance that Longstreet would force the passage that he
accepted battle with far superior numbers.

It is not difficult to imagine how a general like Ney, placed in
Jackson’s situation, would have trimmed and hesitated: how in his
march to Manassas, when he had crossed the mountains and left the
Gap behind him, he would have sent out reconnaissances in all
directions, halting his troops until he learned the coast was clear;
how he would have dashed at the Junction by the shortest route; how
he would have forced his weary troops northward when the enemy’s
approach was reported; how, had he reached Sudley Springs, he would
have hugged the shelter of the woods and let King’s division pass
unmolested; and, finally, when Pope’s columns converged on his
position, have fallen back on Thoroughfare or Aldie. Nor would he
have been greatly to blame. Unless gifted with that moral fortitude
which Napoleon ranks higher than genius or experience, no general
would have succeeded in carrying Lee’s design to a successful issue.
In his unhesitating march to Manassas Junction, in his deliberate
sojourn for four-and-twenty hours astride his enemy’s
communications, in his daring challenge to Pope’s whole army at
Groveton, Jackson displayed the indomitable courage characteristic
of the greatest soldiers.

As suggested in the first volume, it is too often overlooked, by
those who study the history of campaign, that war is the province of
uncertainty. The reader has the whole theatre of war displayed
before him. He notes the exact disposition of the opposing forces at
each hour of the campaign, and with this in his mind’s eye he
condemns or approves the action of the commanders. In the action of
the defeated general he usually often sees much to blame; in the
action of the successful general but little to admire. But his
judgment is not based on a true foundation. He has ignored the fact
that the information at his disposal was not at the disposal of
those he criticises; and until he realises that both generals, to a
greater or less degree, must have been groping in the dark, he will
neither make just allowance for the errors of the one, nor
appreciate the genius of the other.

It is true that it is difficult in the extreme to ascertain how much
or how little those generals whose campaigns have become historical
knew of their enemy at any particular moment. For instance, in the
campaign before us, we are nowhere told whether Lee, when he sent
Jackson to Manassas Junction, was aware that a portion of
McClellan’s army had been shipped to Alexandria in place of Aquia;
or whether he knew, on the second day of the battle of Manassas,
that Pope had been reinforced by two army corps from the Peninsula.
He had certainly captured Pope’s dispatch book, and no doubt it
threw much light on the Federal plans, but we are not aware how far
into the future this light projected. We do know, however, that, in
addition to this correspondence, such knowledge as he had was
derived from reports. But reports are never entirely to be relied
on; they are seldom full, they are often false, and they are
generally exaggerated. However active the cavalry, however patriotic
the inhabitants, no general is ever possessed of accurate
information of his enemy’s dispositions, unless the forces are very
small, or the precautions to elude observation very feeble. On
August 28 Stuart’s patrols covered the whole country round Jackson’s
army, and during the

whole day the Federal columns were converging on Manassas. Sigel and
Reynolds’ four divisions passed through Gainesville, not five miles
from Sudley Springs, and for a time were actually in contact with
Jackson’s outposts; and yet Sigel and Reynolds mistook Jackson’s
outposts for reconnoitring cavalry. Again, when King’s single
division, the rear-guard of Pope’s army, appeared upon the turnpike,
Jackson attacked it with the idea that it was the flank-guard of a
much larger force. Nor was this want of accurate intelligence due to
lack of vigilance or to the dense woods. As a matter of fact the
Confederates were more amply provided with information than is
usually the case in war, even in an open country and with
experienced armies.

But if, in the
most favourable circumstances, a general is surrounded by an
atmosphere which has been most aptly named the fog of war, his
embarrassments are intensified tenfold when he commands a portion of
a divided army. Under ordinary conditions a general is at least
fully informed of the dispositions of his own forces. But when
between two widely separated columns a powerful enemy, capable of
crushing each in turn, intervenes; when the movements of that enemy
are veiled in obscurity; when anxiety has taken possession of the
troops, and the soldiers of either column, striving hopelessly to
penetrate the gloom, reflect on the fate that may have overtaken
their comrades, on the obstacles that may delay them, on the
misunderstandings that may have occurred—it is at such a crisis that
the courage of their leader is put to the severest test.

His situation has been compared to a man entering a dark room full
of assailants, never knowing when or whence a blow may be struck
against him. The illustration is inadequate. Not only has he to
contend with the promptings of his own instincts, but he has to
contend with the instincts and to sustain the resolution of his
whole army. It is not from the enemy he has most to fear. A time
comes in all protracted operations when the nervous energy of the
best troops becomes exhausted, when the most daring shrink from
further sacrifice, when

the desire of self-preservation infects the stoutest veterans, and
the will of the mass opposes a tacit resistance to all further
effort. “Then,” says Clausewitz, “the spark in the breast of the
commander must rekindle hope in the hearts of his men, and so long
as he is equal to this he remains their master. When his influence
ceases, and his own spirit is no longer strong enough to revive the
spirit of others, the masses, drawing him with them, sink into that
lower region of animal nature which recoils from danger and knows
not shame. Such are the obstacles which the brain and courage of the
military commander must overcome if he is to make his name
illustrious.” And the obstacles are never more formidable than when
his troops see no sign of the support they have expected. Then, if
he still moves forward, although his peril increase at every step,
to the point of junction; if he declines the temptation, although
overwhelming numbers threaten him, of a safe line of retreat; if, as
did Jackson, he deliberately confronts and challenges the hostile
masses, then indeed does the soldier rise to the highest level of
moral energy.

Strongly does
Napoleon inveigh against operations which entail the division of an
army into two columns unable to communicate; and especially does he
reprobate the strategy which places the point of junction under the
very beard of a concentrated enemy. Both of these maxims Lee
violated. The last because he knew Pope, the first because he knew
Jackson. It is rare indeed that such strategy succeeds. When all has
depended on a swift and unhesitating advance, generals renowned for
their ardent courage have wavered and turned aside. Hasdrubal,
divided from Hannibal by many miles and a Consular army, fell back
to the Metaurus, and Rome was saved. Two thousand years later,
Prince Frederick Charles, divided by a few marches and two Austrian
army corps from the Crown Prince, lingered so long upon the leer
that the supremacy of Prussia trembled in the balance. But the
character of the Virginian soldier was of loftier type. It has been
remarked that after Jackson’s death Lee never again attempted those
great turning movements which had

achieved his most brilliant victories. Never again did he divide his
army to unite it again on the field of battle. The reason is not far
to seek. There was now no general in the Confederate army to whom he
dared confide the charge of the detached wing, and in possessing one
such general he had been more fortunate than Napoleon.1

1 It is noteworthy that Moltke once, at Königgrätz, carried
out the operation referred to; Wellington twice, at Vittoria and
Toulouse; Napoleon, although he several times attempted it, and,
against inferior numbers, never, except at Ulm, with complete
success.

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